Lightfoot-Dylan-jam session in Rosedale

[charlene]

Toronto Star- picture at link:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...d=968867495754

PHOTOGRAPH BY KEN REGAN
Unforgettable duet
A picture and a thousand words
Jul. 23, 2006. 01:00 AM

You can see it all in his face.

Gordon Lightfoot, sitting in the second-floor rehearsal room of his rambling Rosedale home in Toronto, is playing his Gibson Dove, jamming with Bob Dylan, the man who had been his hero, inspiration and, later, his friend. They’re playing Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and Lightfoot’s eyes are half closed in concentration, the cocky angle of his cigarette moderating what looks on its way to becoming a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, an expression of sheer joy at being in the presence of God.

For his part, Dylan looks like..... well, Dylan: inscrutable, absorbed in his own world, the sun to Lightfoot’s planet.

The event was an after-party hosted by Lightfoot for Dylan’s epic Rolling Thunder Revue, which had rolled into town for a two-night stand - Dec. 1 and 2, 1975 - at Maple Leaf Gardens. Rolling Thunder Revue had started as a modest tour early in the fall, but gained momentum and critical acclaim along the way, this being an era when rock concerts could still become “happenings,” acquiring heightened significance not for supporting political causes, like famine relief or mobilizing youth to vote, but simply on their own self-importance.

By the Toronto stop, near the end of its run, Dylan had with him Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, troubadour Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, former Byrds leader Roger McGuinn and beat poet Allen Ginsberg, with illustrious surprise guests added in nearly every city and the shows running between four and five hours.

With the Gardens packed on the first night, Dylan dedicated “Dark As A Dungeon”, an old Merle Travis coal-mining song that Lightfoot thinks he introduced him to in the ’60s, to his friend and gave Lightfoot a prime spot immediately before his finale. (Fair enough for the hometown boy but, this being the imperial Dylan, a sign of respect nonetheless.) Given a hero’s welcome by the crowd, Lightfoot performed three songs: “Sundown”, “The Watchman’s Gone” and “Race Among the Ruins”, a new one that he would record on his next album, Summertime Dream.

This photo was taken sometime that night, or possibly in the wee hours of the next morning. No one can remember, for this was a musician’s after-party during the excessive ’70s, with alcohol and recreational pharmaceuticals flowing.

(At some point in the evening, Dylan held a tape recorder while Lightfoot sang his “Ballad in Plain D.” It can be heard in the background of a scene in Dylan’s wretchedly self-indulgent 1977 film, Renaldo and Clara.)

Lightfoot’s friend, Tiny, a six-foot-eight banjo player, was the doorman, making sure the party didn’t get out of control, which it seemed to do around the time Dylan crony and Rolling Thunder emcee Bobby Neuwirth threw his leather jacket in the living room fireplace and the joint filled with smoke.

Roger McGuinn, who today says “the general mentality [of the Rolling Thunder Revue] was that of a bike gang or a pirate ship crew,” remembers a party at Lightfoot’s and something about Neuwirth’s jacket but little else about the evening.

Which may echo what they say about Woodstock: if you can remember it you weren’t there. Since the mid-1960s, Lightfoot had been the quintessential Canadian folksinger. His songs were covered by Ian and Sylvia, Peter, Paul and Mary, Elvis Presley, Judy Collins, Johnny Cash, Harry Belafonte, Marty Robbins and others. He became notorious throughout North America when “Black Day in July”, an angry song about the 1967 Detroit race riots, was banned by many top-40 radio stations in the United States. Dylan himself would write, “Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.”

By the mid-’70s, Lightfoot was at the height of his songwriting powers (less than three weeks before the party, he had written one of his most iconic songs, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”) and at the height of his fame. The success of Sundown the previous year - the album sold 1.5-million copies within 12 months, and both the album and title track had been number one hits in the United States and Canada - had firmly established him as a star, albeit a reluctant one.

Lightfoot has always been the classic brooding artist, uncomfortable as a public figure. He sees himself as a working man, no more, as though he was constructing pine furniture or running a car dealership in his hometown of Orillia rather than creating mythic songs from that mysterious alchemy of music and imagination.

In interviews, a reserved, wary man emerged, someone who, despite the accolades and awards - to date, they include five Grammy nominations, 17 Juno Awards, the Governor General’s Award and a companion of the Order of Canada - seemed uncertain he deserved them.. Even today, speaking of Dylan, he says, “He became a mentor for a long time; I think he probably still is to this day.”

He has six children with four women and had a troubled relationship with alcohol until 1982, when he quit cold turkey, suggesting the kind of tumultuous personal life that provides a songwriter with raw material.

He once said, “The effect of my music on my personal life is devastating.” By the late ’70s, Lightfoot’s style - rooted more deeply in the folk tradition of the ’60s than contemporaries like James Taylor, Paul Simon or Dylan - would no longer be the trend du jour, but he would retain a faithful following for the rest of his career and continue to write, record and perform, as well as enjoy financial stability from royalties on a catalogue that today numbers about 250 songs. (He owns the copyright to them all.)

In 2002, Lightfoot nearly died when an aorta burst in his abdomen. He lay in a coma for six weeks, and when he returned to consciousness his larynx - the source of his distinctive, burnished oak tenor - had been shredded during surgery. Since then he has been gradually recovering - he appeared at Canada’s Live 8 concert in Barrie last year and is on tour through this summer and fall - but he looks and sounds frail, and sometimes he has trouble finding the strength to sing his mighty, seven-minute “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”.

Just about a year before the picture with Dylan was taken, with Lightfoot as close to a pop star as he would ever become, he was interviewed for Crawdaddy, a U.S. music magazine. The writer, apparently both charmed and puzzled by her subject’s guarded, anti-star persona, wrote: “He is justifiably proud of being Canadian, in the self-effacing, mindless way Canadians have of acknowledging their nationality.”

Look at the picture again: that’s our relationship to America in the attentive, focussed Lightfoot and the arrogantly assured Dylan. And that’s what we love about Lightfoot: he’s as Canadian as a Tom Thomson canvas or the Trans-Canada Highway.

ADD PIC-Jan.28-2014-this might be the photo...

David Hayes is a Toronto freelance writer.

[RM]

Great stuff Charlene,

However, I find the Canada-America analogy made at the end to be odd. I assure you, we are not all arrogant.

Just kidding,

RMD

[charlene]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RMD:
[I assure you, we are not all arrogant.
QUOTE]

this i know to be true...
Char

[DJ in MJ]

Thanks for the article, Char. The authour is obviously not a Dylan lover, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with that picture. Looks like a great jam session to me!

[GJA]

Am I the only person who thinks Dylan is over rated and not even close to GL's talent?

[Cathy]

Originally posted by GJA:
Am I the only person who thinks Dylan is over rated and not even close to GL's talent?

I'll second that.

[GretschViking]

Sorry folks, I can't agree. I have been listen to Bob Dylan for a long time now. (Since the late seventies when I was about 16) I always thought he was as good as it got. I also think that he is the reason that I never listened to all that terrible stuff that came out around that time. I mean, if I have Bob Dylan records, why the heck would I listen to Foreigner? For those who don't think Bob isn't close to GL's talent(and I love GL by the way) Listen to the song that the article mentioned (Love minus zero/no limit) it is my favorite Dylan song, and a beautiful one to boot. (It is on "Bringing it all back home")

[TheWatchman]

Originally posted by GJA:
Am I the only person who thinks Dylan is over rated and not even close to GL's talent?

In what way? Of course Lightfoot has a more desirable voice, but you mentioned talent, which is much more than just the sound of a voice, or your opinion on what sounds good.

There are thousands of people with fantastic voices who know nothing about music, much less songwriting. These are the types who should be considered overrated as they accept their Grammy Award, not a poet, singer, songwriter and icon that belongs to an entire generation of people. Plus, more people have covered Dylan's work than any other musician on the planet. Overrated? Hardly.

Let's make this simple. You obviously think Lightfoot is a very talented artist because you think Bob Dylan pales in comparison. What do you think Lightfoot's answer would be if asked if Dylan is overrated? I think we all know what that answer would be. If Lightfoot thinks he's one of the best, if not the best, do you now second guess Lightfoot's talent?

[GJA]

Originally posted by TheWatchman:
quote:Originally posted by GJA:
Am I the only person who thinks Dylan is over rated and not even close to GL's talent?

In what way? Of course Lightfoot has a more desirable voice, but you mentioned talent, which is much more than just the sound of a voice, or your opinion on what sounds good.

There are thousands of people with fantastic voices who know nothing about music, much less songwriting. These are the types who should be considered overrated as they accept their Grammy Award, not a poet, singer, songwriter and icon that belongs to an entire generation of people. Plus, more people have covered Dylan's work than any other musician on the planet. Overrated? Hardly.

Let's make this simple. You obviously think Lightfoot is a very talented artist because you think Bob Dylan pales in comparison. What do you think Lightfoot's answer would be if asked if Dylan is overrated? I think we all know what that answer would be. If Lightfoot thinks he's one of the best, if not the best, do you now second guess Lightfoot's talent? [/QUOTE]Well, I know GL admires Dylan. But I've never been a Dylan fan. Sorry.

[DJ in MJ]

The way I see it, one's own personal taste is just that. It doesn't require justification to enjoy something.

As far as Dylan goes, I'm not a huge fan of his work either, but I have never met the man personally so I have no right to judge his character. And speaking as a Canadiac who has spent a lot of time travelling throughout the USA, I can say without a doubt that most Americans I've met have been great folks and far from arrogant. We do not need the negative comparison to our Big Brother to justify we are a humble nation.

Ok, I'm off my soapbox now. And for the record, I would have been in my personal Heaven to have spent a few minutes at that party with Messrs. Lightfoot and Dylan!

[geodeticman]

Thanks for the article Char.

Regarding the Dylan versus Lightfoot strengths, or stand-alone merit of either, the question of the ubiquitous word genius comes up again.

I personally believe Lightfoot to be a genius in both his music, and his presence and delivery.
I know of course I am not alone in this.
His ability to captivate people is startling.

My comments in another thread on the merits of a song being based on "hummable, hummable, whistleable" pale to vapid when the real criteria that occurs to me now why I find GL's music to be genius.

Virtually every other artist or group i have listened to is lucky to ever approach the quality of any one song of Gl's spun at random, but noteably, say, a title song. So many artists for years, and currently, sell albums where one or two songs are comparatively good, versus the rest of their album that is so often forgettable. As a whole, usually forgettable, to me.

Then, on the other hand, forget Gordon's title song for a moment, generally speaking to me, the whole damn album is astonishingly good. You don't feel burned by one or 2 listenable songs, but an entire album where, when its new, you listen with every new song hanging in waiting, to start. And I am waiting, for that brief 2 seconds or so between songs on a new album excited to try and guess what the next song will sound like.

His music is a package deal to me that captures your senses and vivid imagery in your mind's eye that is painted with such amazing feel for style, lyrics, beauty of instruments and melody, and GL's voice that is still uplifting.

While he may appear frail by comparison to former years, and his voice is not the "burled oak tenor" (I'd of said bird's eye maple baritone) it may have been in the past, the whole deal together still captivates as for what he may have lost in age and medical events, he continues to age like a fine wine and his presence, and character simply seem to grow with every year.

Dylan has never captivated me musically or in presence this way, not even close. I realize he is an icon of perhaps immeasurable impact, such as Gord's respect for him as a mentor (in Gord's mind it sounds, versus in Dylan's, it sounds more to be "damn I wish I had wrote that song - near quote" versus himself as a mentor.

Dylan is a folk and rock institution, and we all have our varied mix of favorites. His influence is legendary, but I don't think he holds a candle to Gord in any way except when his great material is covered by other artists with sound and presence that exceed his own by comparison.

Also, admittedly at times, Dylan's astonishingly good lyrics that place him in Lightfoot's league of poetry on its own merit certainly have him in the living legend category, genius as well. But..... if he could only sing !

I'm not callously referring to Dylan's tragic loss of voice quality after the accident, rather, I never thought he could sing. You can take the finest piano concerto in the world, and play it on Linus' children's piano (harsh, I know, but makes the point), and nothing will ever come out at at its true potential.

And so it is I compare, however harshly, Dylan's voice. Lightfoot's voice I liken to a fine Strativarius at his peak vocally, and even with aging, medical events, and tragic occurences, he seems to readily adapt (in our minds?),(and probably with extreme pain and effort to sing in his mind) with amazingly good quality in concert.

And the voice still captivates us on so many favorite songs despite breaks, creaks, and strains, like an ageing but fine sailing vessel with a sound hull but creaky mains'l to these changes with aplombe that took arguably 2-4 albums or so to adapt at various stages of change , but an aging and warped Strativarius always sounds better to me than an alderwood knock-off.

In concert, my God, he still captivates the audience with a mix of his presence and his voice, then enter the superb material, and the finely-tuned Swiss watch of his road band. The concerts are still pure magic, even though we still maybe leave with some mixed emotions.

Sometimes, if he had difficulty, those feelings can include that hard lump in your throat when you leave your Dad at the nursing home and he sounds each time like he may not be able to talk at all upon the following visit.

While that is an extreme case, and not a fair comparison in magnitude and qualitative aspects as well, the ageing voice of Lightfoot, despite brilliant adaptiveness to it in Painter and noteably about 3 songs in Hsrmony, I still get a little lump in my throat when I hear what I think is still a miracle AND hard work that the man can perform with such excellence.

Unfairly I think, I sadly feel such things for what he's been through, but the inspirations from his work remain rife. The lyrics from "Inspration Lady" and all the others in Harmony still convey a Lightfoot full of life to me, and is truly a walking lesson in character and strength. It conveys a sense of true work ethic and a man's life passion in his music the way he finished recording Harmony.

No resting on his laurels for that man, although when the time comes, I dunno, 20 - 30 years from now, I 'spect we'll understand ! LOL

A lesson in keep on keepin' on to me,
geo steve

geo Steve

[ July 30, 2006, 13:58: Message edited by: geodeticman ]

[Auburn Annie]

Oddly enough there are very few Dylan songs performed by Dylan himself that I like but DO enjoy other performer's covers of them (e.g. Joan Baez and especially Judy Collins) very much. I was struck just last night while listening to the "Recollections" album how much I liked the Collins' version of Mr. Tambourine Man, even better on some level than the Byrds' take on it.